children – Page 2 – Soul Reflection

Trigger Me Tantrum

I have been musing over children’s tantrums and how so often the initiating triggers can be unnoticed; the act of distress being so all consuming and energetically confronting that the source becomes lost in the moment. Sadly, when the catalysts are missed the opportunity for empathy, resolution, connection and growth are usually missed too.

My reflections have led me to narrow down what I believe to be the 3 key triggers that lead to emotional meltdown: diet, sleep and anxiety/fear.

Guaranteed that my children will flip out if over tired, filled with refined sugar or too much wheat and guaranteed, if they are unable to control events that cause them concern or are faced with an emotionally threatening situation, they will act out of character and generally become obstructive, unreasonable and sometimes hysterical. But, if I spot that initiator and manage to support them through it, they feel understood, heard and loved. And they grow to understand themselves better because of the complete process.

As I considered these flashpoints, I realised that they naturally apply to adults too. Maybe we don’t tantrum quite in the style of kids (maybe we do sometimes too!) but those places where we act out, where we are less patient, less tolerant, less kind, also predominantly derive from these 3 core triggers.

Sleep and Diet, whilst often in disorder, are more simply managed and controlled. By recognising the importance of their part in our mental wellbeing they can be adjusted to the appropriate priority.

Anxiety and Fear are trickier; far less control; the numerous possibilities of spontaneous and unexpected catalysts; and generally some of life’s more challenging obstacles that can be hurled in our direction at any given moment.

But knowledge is still power and in this case often retrospectively. At those time when I find myself presenting the less pleasant side of my nature, it is so helpful for me to investigate these 3 triggers and see how I can adjust or support them. If it is anxiety or fear that has reared up, I can take steps to learn to manage that better, to implement change in my life that can reduce that possibility, or even overcome them completely.

Empathy, resolution, connection and growth are created for me, for my children and for others when I take a breath to explore the source of the behaviour. No one tantrums because they think it’s cool or healthy, it’s a hard place to go and it deserves every effort to understand it.

Values

I was recently challenged to ‘contribute’ more to my family through the means of bringing in income. It was directed at me with the implication that all I do is live off my husband and swan about.

Naturally, I felt hurt and insulted.

I work hard. Most days the only time I get to sit down between 6.30am and 8pm is in the car to and from the school run and at supper; my mind is constantly flitting from one ‘to do’ item to the next and wondering how many I can multitask simultaneously. Oh and yes about once a week I will meet a friend for a coffee or a catch up, my rest time, because my job is all-day-and-all-night-every-single-day, so a coffee break every now and then is just basic essential care.

Many articles have crossed checked the monetary value of a SAHM (Stay at Home Mum) and have discovered that to replicate their input into the household would require a vast outlay of money on separate personnel. But I don’t want to compare my job to gold coins, I want to shift the perspective to our core values, money is certainly a necessary commodity but it is not the ultimate need.

In relationships we discuss whether or not we have similar values, rarely does this simply mean how much finance each partner will contribute. More often than not these values include honesty, respect, communication, parenting choices and family relationships. Do the values marry? If so, these are signs of potentially strong and life-long relationships.

For me, wholesome values are not just in partnered relationships but across the board in friendships, work peers, community connections and of course within our parent/child dynamics.

So when my ‘value’ as a SAHM was narrowed into the crude description as to whether or not I brought home gold coins, I felt a deep grief for all that I provide to my family, for all the non-material value that is unacknowledged and underappreciated across our societal norms. I felt that grief ripple out to all those individuals who offer their voluntary acts of service to our community to care for the young, old, infirm, environment and animals, who are whitewashed into the background because they don’t bring gold bullion back home. How distorted have our societal values become when my job, to shape, nurture and guide our future generations, is dismissed as luxurious and frivolous?

For me, I hugely value the consistency and security my children receive to help their confidence flourish out into the world; to enable them to stretch their bungee ropes to distant discoveries and bounce right back again when they need. I know that my choice to stay at home is solely built on nurturing their human potential.

That potential is not about shaping them into the best lawyers or doctors, but to help them know their own happiness now and in their future, to help them have the courage to stand up for truth and honour, love and respect. And all that is a multi-levelled task; it covers presence, diet, response time, emotional well being, sleep, health & friendships.

My daughter recently described her future to me, when she would leave school, what her career would be, how many children she would have, the usual musings of the young and fearless! But what I heard in amongst her description what that she would take a career break to have children; she has chosen a career that she can step out of and return to when she wishes because she values what me being at home means to her and she wants to offer that back to her children too. It has been important to her, it has been of value.

There is a wonderful analogy in Heidi’s Children where the grandfather is on his deathbed and asks little Marta to go to the high pastures and pick him fresh strawberries. She does as he bids but, with the encouragement of her friends, instead of returning straight home, she sells them in the town and brings home money which she is told will bring her grandfather greater happiness. The grandfather is furious, for he had been looking forward to the succulent, refreshing strawberries all day, and he demands Marta bite the coin to see if it brings the same satisfaction.

This…

This is where our values are mistaken at times, there is no monetary replacement for nourishment, kindness and love and the most glorious thing about these is that they are absolutely free.

So next time someone challenges me to bring greater value to my family, I might just remind them that I gift strawberries not gold.

Initiation

I was listening to a lecture by Robert Moore the other day and heard him describe what happens to our children when they are not supported through to adulthood with the appropriate initiation.

An appropriate initiation meaning a rite of passage supported by the elders of the community that delivers the teenager into their authentic strength, their self belief and their burgeoning knowing.

Robert Moore described how men without initiation have a tendencey to lack the wisdom to handle their natural aggression; it has not been tempered or guided with the knowledge of the elders. This is a big topic of conversation on social media and the world stage right now. Men and their aggression. I’ll come back to that…

He then went on to say that women without initiation have a tendencey to fall into the space of victim; they are not empowered in their self belief and inner strength. Bingo!

Aggressive Men / Victim Women…. is that not the constant narrative on twitter/facebook/instagram etc at the moment. The topic du jour.

Except that we are looking at it face on, rather than behind the scenes. I have heard very few voices who actually understand where this dynamic is coming from, reaching back to our ancestry and forward to our knowledge of psychology to bring forth this vital information.

Our society is failing our children by not supporting, creating and delivering this aspect of transition, from child to adult. We can continue to spend the days verbalising on social media or we can take action and begin to change the world with a true and meaningful understanding of how to achieve that.

Healthy initiation (and university style trauma is definitely not that!) is a critical piece of the puzzle of healing.

***

I personally know of three global organisations that help to create that process of initiation for men & woman, no matter what age:

The ManKind Project

Woman Within International

Women in Power

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly

I wrote recently about my kids bickering (A Ruthless Mirror) and how I know that I need to model some more consistent kindness & patience myself before I can really ask much more of them.

I sincerely believe that our children are reflections of those closest to them and if their behaviour is errant in anyway, more often than not, the adjustments can be made by owning our own shadows and influences.

But it can feel rather hard and exhausting to feel that weight of responsibility when facing challenging childhood dynamics. Unless of course there is a counter balance.

This balance would be the ability to see and own the reflection of their gold; their kindnesses, their humour, their generosity and love.

And I caught myself the other day being unable to hold that gold. I realised the message I told myself was that all their gold belonged solely to them, they were born that way and it was in spite of me rather than with-the-help-of-me that they expressed their brilliance. Yet I would happily flagellate myself when their shadows and darkness expressed themselves too fiercely.

So to balance my own self-criticism I am going to allow myself a little bit of accountability for all their deliciousness too. I cannot, nor do I wish to, claim it all, for I have witnessed how much they have brought with them in their own souls; but sometimes there are moments when they reflect back to me the positive influences I have had. So now I will absorb these moments, wrap them in love and tuck them into my heart to help me harmonise our little unit.

I will remember that all is welcome, the good, the bad and the ugly; I will remember to keep on shining my own light to rebalance my darkness.

And I will be proud of me just as much as I am achingly proud of them.

A Ruthless Mirror

Recently the bickering of my kids has been driving me a little demented. Hearing the impatience retorts, and unsympathetic reactions that then spiral into fisticuffs and cruel words, triggers me something rotten.

So I hear myself saying all sorts of unhelpful snaps: ‘stop!’; ‘be kind!’; ‘there will be consequences if you continue!’. And then they look at me square in the face, deaf to my protests.

And I know why.

Everything that I accuse them of, I am guilty of myself. Am I patient with their needs and issues? Often not, I am too frequently distracted by the next need of meals, or school runs or crazy head thoughts; I judge their problems of colouring pens or space or choice of game to be of lesser value than my preoccupation and I respond with sighs and frustration.

Am I kind? Oh yes, lots of the time I am but not when I am pushed and tired, then I can be careless with my words and energy and hurtful with my reactions. But somehow I am expecting my kids to be above that. They ‘should’ be better at controlling those bitchy words age 8 and 6, seeing as I’ve got it handled aged 41. Not!

Am I generous? With all of the things I have plenty of then I am super generous, but I know I can horde and snuffle away my precious and less abundant treasures, including my time and attention.

Am I violent? Never. Well never with my fists or feet, but I can carry the violence of energy in my huffs and silences when hurting. Just like them.

So I recognise this ruthless, searingly honest mirror of my children. I know that the trigger, the unbearable bickering, is my lesson to walk through.

I said to my husband yesterday, I have used my will power to overcome so many obstacles in my life, to change patterns and habits that have been destroying me. I have cured myself of eating disorders, quit addictive substances, abandoned my self harming, walked away from abusive relationships, all through the power of my own choice and determination.

Yet this space, where I know that it is ‘I’ who needs to model the change I wish to see. ‘I’ need to offer more patience, kindness and generosity so that my children have that reflection in their mirror of learning. If I am triggered, it is my issue to work through, not theirs to force into submission.

But I am finding it astoundingly hard. I want to make it their fault, I want to make them wrong for not being able to work through their issues with calm and resolve. I want to abdicate all the responsibility of being their guide because otherwise I have to face the fact that I’ve still got to dig deep for some strength to create change in myself so that my children have a role model I can be proud of.

I have done well for children and I have conquered many mountains to give them a start in life that they and the world deserve. And this is the next station on my journey, uncovering the source of my trigger, to free us all for our next destination.

Literally

I have come to the conclusion that the world has become too literal.

Dogmatic science has replaced dogmatic religion and we are no better off for it.

Dogma is bad in whatever form – irony at its finest!

What I see, as indicative of this literal attitude, is the lack of softness towards each other. The words we speak or write are to be perfectly crafted or suffer being torn to shreds by baying hounds. The nuance and subtlety of life are lost in favour of documented evidence. Science is dictating how life must look, from education, medicine, child rearing and career trajectories, everything seems to have a right or wrong way defined by statistics and data. Non-conforming becomes a label of conspiracy theorist or anarchist rather than simply a different perspective.

Recently some mothers inferred that one of my children should somehow be different and I saw this ‘literal’ thread play out in their reasoning. Firstly, they couldn’t seem to grasp that children aren’t always literal (our beautiful shining lights of sanity is this crazy world), therefore strong words or adult themes were read from the adult standpoint of shocking brevity rather than understanding how children explore and play with ideas and concepts that cross their paths in a truly innocent and harmless way. Second to that was the right or wrongness that comes with this societal indoctrination, if my child behaved differently to theirs, they must label mine wrong, so that their way would still be ‘right’. No allowance for different child personalities, developmental stages, parenting influences, beliefs and values… just simple right or wrong.

And it is utterly exhausting. One of the nails in the coffin with my mother was her determination to contradict and undermine my parenting values because they were different to hers. I saw that for her, it felt like I was somehow rejecting her by choosing a different approach and I understand how easy it is to interpret that but just far more simply, I’m my own person with my own viewpoint and that is all. I don’t have to back it up with data and science and facts and figures and I don’t want you to either.

Last week, a stranger mum apologised to me because her son was standing in my pathway and gazing dreamily up towards the sky. Shockingly, I managed to take an extra moment out of my day to walk around him rather than demand him move! But it really hit me hard how that mum felt she must apologise for her naturally day dreamy little one because we have become so desperately unforgiving as a society.

The rigidity of belief is what defines dogma and be it science or religion both lose their true beauty and power under these terms. Science can be a place of magical discovery with the full allowance to release a past belief in order to welcome a new and faith offers us the gentleness of understanding and forgiveness. All so beautiful when held lightly and playfully rather than with heavy and fearful hands.

One of my most memorable lines
from Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden is ‘There’s nowt so queer as folk.’

Yes! Yes! Yes!

I am happy to be as queer and different to my neighbour as they are to theirs. It makes life so much more vibrant and gentle and interesting.

WTF

So last week I had one of those ‘what the f*** just happened’ moments. The sort when I think everyone’s on the same page and getting on happily and then I get smacked in the face by someone’s reaction and am sent reeling into next month.

And, in typical style, I have been reflecting on it….

So as a very quick précis, my child and their best friend had a minor falling out, nothing out of the ordinary for their age and stage. My child was feeling vulnerable and upset about the situation so I asked the other mum if we could meet before school to resolve it all before facing the day ahead. No biggie. Or so I thought….

My child started to speak to the friend but was so overcome by upset they burst into tears and asked for my help. I checked in with the friend to see if they knew what it was all about and before either of us could speak another word the mother interrupted, shooed her child away and angrily stated ‘she wasn’t having this’!

SMACK!

What the f*** just happened? Weren’t we all just gently and kindly trying to help the kids work things out?

The mother went on to state that she didn’t want her child ‘put on the spot’; that they could ‘figure it all out at school’; that I ‘shouldn’t be involved’ (facepalm!); and it went on. I goldfished for a few moments before fury hit me, my child was by this point sobbing with distress that peace hadn’t been made before school started. Honestly, whatever the perception and judgement on my way of doing things versus theirs, what left me speechless was the total lack of compassion towards another small human being. I simply cannot imagine seeing a little one (mine or anyone else’s) in such distress and refusing to help. What has happened to compassion?

So that is what I’ve been reflecting on. I am still feeling totally rageful towards the other parent but that is my journey to process and release over the coming days and weeks. And for me to find compassion for her – oh the irony!

But actually I think there is a deeper and bigger issue at stake. I believe, in general, the population are feeling pretty disempowered, taking charge of their own lives seems to be becoming a foreign concept. This feels deeply frightening and ultimately dangerous.

What I saw in this dynamic and in other recent moments has been a lack of personal responsibility, not out of malaise, but, more insidiously, out of habit. This is how our recent generations have and are being trained throughout their childhood, to pass the buck of responsibility. This litigation culture means that it’s always someone else’s fault and there is inevitably someone who can resolve the issue for them, be it teachers, parents, police, the lawyers, the government. And by always passing the buck, there is never an opportunity to learn how to handle and resolve conflict before it becomes overkill. When I brought my child to that conversation it was not only a space for them to express their fears and worries on the friendship but also perhaps to hear some hard words in return; maybe the friend was annoyed, maybe my child had done something to upset them, but there is no shame in facing our shadows and deciding how to integrate that into our psyche.

The constant avoidance of these moments not only creates this desperate place of disempowerment, where our own strength to face discomfort and challenge is never experienced and therefore not integrated fully into our beings, but with that comes this lack of compassion that I witnessed. The fear of conflict overrode natural human kindness and actually created a greater and uglier conflict than was necessary. That’s what fear is like, powerful, pervasive and ultimately distressing. In this scenario it was so strong that the other mother believed I had no right to be involved in the situation, a reflection perhaps of her feelings, if she hasn’t the power to face conflict calmly, why should I be allowed to carry it? Disempowerment demanding further disempowerment to justify their own.

Urgh, it feels like a big ugly tangle of disallowed feelings and suppressed strength. In venting conversation with my friends, I questioned ‘what happened to just having a conversation about it?’ Have we really reached a point in our society where the gloss veneer is all that is permitted?

Dark and difficult conversations are so vital to understanding the complexities of existence and humanity. Please let’s keep exploring them, it is only fear that makes them truly unpleasant.

The Phoenix Decade

It has started. The Phoenix Decade.

Our 40’s are a time typified by the clichéd ‘midlife crisis’: fast cars, affairs, career change, divorce and unexpected death.

Sadly, our society seems to sneer and judge a lot of these changes rather than embrace this as a natural life transition and of course that judgement comes from the fear of ‘us’ and ‘them’, separating the shadow and placing it in someone else’s court. But the truth is, our 40’s are the time for our spiritual renaissance.

Biologically, most of us will be coming to the end of the early years of parenting, the dance of mating and conception taking up so much of our 20’s and 30’s. And with those elements ‘in the bag’, there opens up a space in our lives to observe ourselves in greater depth. Our children and loved ones will be offering mirrors to the darkest parts of our souls through their triggers and button pushing and it is here that we have the greatest opportunity to dig out the roots of our deepest wounds and raise them up into the light.

This is the decade of philosophical thinking, of reflecting back on our own upbringing, how we might do things similarly or differently; exploring the aggrievements that have entrenched reactions and personality traits that may no longer serve us into true maturity and adulthood. It is the golden ticket for change and transformation, to allow your past to die and your renewed and invigorated self to rise from the ashes.

As I look around my peers, I am seeing sickness that is shaking souls to their very cores – cancers, strokes, depression; I am seeing relationships flounder and stumble with what appear to be unbridgeable chasms of disconnect; I am seeing denial where materialistic choices are covering the voids of love and connection. For me these are all symbolic gifts to face the Phoenix.

For myself I know I was close to great sickness. The levels of stress and discordance that I was carrying in relation to my mother were putting a burden upon my system that was unsustainable. Despite my healthy lifestyle, organic nutrition and conscious living, I could still feel the poison of unhappiness in my body. I had early warning signs singing through my nervous system, twinges, aches, pains, exhaustion. That was why it was so necessary for me to face that relationship head on and take the space I needed from it. I could have sat in the dynamic continuing our mutual unspoken discomfort and pain, I could have pretended it didn’t really exist, it wasn’t surely that important, but I didn’t want to die. And that was what that choice felt to me, that my body could no longer carry such a consistently high level of stress, something would eventually crumble.

So I am walking into this decade of the Phoenix with my eyes wide open. I want to face the shadows that will twist and turn out of the ashes; I want to address what needs to be explored. My husband and I will look into the fragile places of our love and relationship and dig out the dirt and attempt to replace it with light. I will stare into the mirror of my children and try my best to listen to their messages of reflection, to own what is mine and to return what is theirs. I don’t imagine that this decade is going to be my easiest, moreover because I am also having to witness my dear friends as they uncover their own phoenixes and the joy and suffering that that can bring. But I am also full of the excitement and possibility that this decade of renewal offers. I am excited to release the shackles of my past and to step fully present (with the best of my intention) into the second half of my life.

I will rise out of the ashes and I will soar.

Weinstein et al

I have encountered many ‘Weinstein’s’ in my time, from my own father to bosses, strangers, even those I thought were friends. From the ‘playful’ pinches all the way through to rape. I have experienced the gamut of ‘toxic masculinity’.

But I will not stand and make them my enemy. I will not make men an evil entity that need to be punished for their heinous behaviour. What I see are deeply wounded and damaged individuals who have had their innocent child hearts hurt and broken in unimaginable ways. They have become adults desperate for validation, for control and emotional ‘safety’ and this comes out in toxic, wounding and terrible actions.

I am not condoning a single thing that they have done as accountable, responsible adults. Do they need to be brought up and held to account? Do they need the awareness of their behaviour brought to light, do they need support, therapy, counselling? Yes to all this. And in the very worst cases, prison is probably the first port of call before any rehabilitation can be implemented. I am not, for a moment, suggesting allowing or permitting this type of behaviour but what I am saying is that by making these men into inhuman animals worthy only of our hatred and scorn we are only perpetuating this dynamic in our society.

As a global society we are failing our children. We have forgotten, disassociated ourselves from, the crucial attachment needs that create respectful, kind, thoughtful humans. These are the roots of the problems that we are witnessing today in our men and women. If our sons and daughters were raised with loving consciousness and presence, is it even possible for them to become the monsters that we vilify in the press? No, it’s like a law of science, we cannot provide wholesome parenting and create evil.

But just loving our children is not enough, I adore my children but that doesn’t stop me passing on my insecurities, my wounding. What will break my ancestral cycles is bringing my awareness to the psychological needs of my children and my own childhood, becoming conscious of what created my wounds and my anger and working hard to provide what I lacked, owning my mistakes and attempting to do it differently next time. Only by taking full responsibility for my own actions will I model that possibility to my children and my descendants.

So when I read the powerful hatred towards Weinstein et al, all I really hear is hatred towards ourselves. What I would love is to embrace the possibility that Weinstein’s willingness to enter rehabilitation might just birth a shift in his perspective that could create healing. What I would love to hear is how these moments of unveiling could push us to reflect on why men exist in this way. How can we create the changes in our world to bring forth the necessary shifts to our humanness? Can we learn from our mistakes or will we just continue to punish them?

Mini Me’s

When my daughter, my first born, arrived in the world, I was immediately struck with an intense solar plexus knowing that she was her own person. I knew that she had been gifted to us, to guide and raise, but her soul was already formed and strong; she did not belong to me.

I was so grateful for this knowing, realising that she had her own purpose in being here and that my job was not to create a perfect version of humanity through her but simply to support her unfolding into her own true self.

Accepting and following that understanding was so easy in the first couple of years but as she and her brother grow and express all facets of their personalities in a variety of social and antisocial scenarios, it has sometimes been hard to hang on to.

Surprisingly one of the hardest aspects has been my determination for them NOT to be a ‘mini me’. Not only was I conscious of them being their own soulful being, but I have recently realised that I was also attempting to make sure they didn’t become like me; the flawed, wounded, often angry and impatient me that I judge so harshly. I wanted something different for them. But of course, even though our babes have come with their own journey to explore, part of that journey is to be our imitators and our mirrors; to hold up our reflection and see how we react to it.

My children do this well and perfectly for me. They express their impatience and their fiery tempers and their annoyances (in amongst all their generosity and kindness and love) and I have come down hard, trying to force it to be different. Trying to educate them, trying to change myself to model better; trying, pushing, resisting.

And then I realised that as much as they are their very own soul, with all the beautiful unique qualities they bring to the world, they are also ‘mini me’s’. They are reflecting back to me not what I have to force myself to change but what I need to accept.

I listened to my son’s kindergarten teacher speak a few nights ago about the boisterous and energetic behaviour of the elder kids and I really heard how she described the Steiner philosophy on how to work with their energy.

‘If something is being expressed then it needs to come out, suppressing it doesn’t help. By allowing its expression there comes the possibility of transforming it into something else.’

From this I visualise the smoke that comes out of me when I feel angry or annoyed or impatient, I see it swirl into the air and transform into dragons and magic and stars and sparkles.

So let me be the container for my children, let me hold the space for them to express all these parts of themselves, that I have rejected in myself, and let us together allow these intrinsic parts of ourselves voice. By doing so let us witness them transform and flow on, from rigidness to free form, with safety and love circling them all.

My children are their own spirits but the parts of me they have chosen to mirror are intrinsic aspects of them too. By allowing these I can offer them one of life’s most precious gifts: self acceptance and with that the freedom that walks alongside.